(International Freighting Weekly – Mike King)
There could be a shortage of containerships by 2012 as the newbuilding orderbook approaches 10-year lows, according to new analysis by Macquarie Equities Research. In its latest Vital Signs shipping report, Macquarie found that the current boxship orderbook would produce a 10% increase in the global fleet’s size next year, falling to 6% growth in 2012.
“Based on our view that volumes will achieve minimum growth of 8% a year, we are potentially facing a shortage of capacity in 2012,” said the authors. “The orderbook as a percentage of the current fleet is approaching lows last seen in 2003, ahead of the last boom in containership profits.”
Alphaliner estimates that some 6.7% of the orderbook has been cancelled since the beginning of the global financial crisis in October 2008, while scrapping has also made a sizeable dent in capacity.
In 2009, only two new containership orders were placed and this year, the 55 vessels that have been ordered equates to just 2.2% of the existing fleet. Macquarie said: “Due to solid deliveries year-to-date, the orderbook has fallen to 26.4% of the cellular fleet from 36.1% in January and a peak of 64.2% in November 2007.” Read more here.
